ADL: One in Six Hungarians Cast 'Votes For Hate'

The Anti-Defamation League, noting that one in six Hungarian voters cast their ballots for an openly anti-Semitic party in this month's elections, has called the strong showing of the Jobbik party, “a vote for hate.”

Most mainstream voters opposed to the Socialist government supported the center-right Fidesz party, which won roughly 53 percent of the vote.

But 16.6 percent of the electorate cast their ballots for the openly anti-Semitic and racist party Jobbik which netted slightly less than the in-power socialists.

"A vote for Jobbik was a vote for hate,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “The Jobbik party’s appeals to racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism clearly have their antecedents in modern European history, and no one wants to see that history repeated in Hungary.”

“We urge Fidesz leader Victor Orban to uphold his party’s pledge not to form a government with Jobbik,” said Foxman said.

The vote represented Hungary's biggest election outcome for the right since the Nazi era.

The Jobbik party is closely linked with the Hungarian Guard, whose uniforms resemblethe Hungarian Nazi sympathizer groups of the 1940s.

One of the party's election campaign platforms was that Jews should not occupy powerful positions in Hungary. With near 100,000 Jews, Hungary has the biggest Jewish population in Central Europe.